City Is Trashing 18-gallon Recyclers

Most Nn Residents Will Get New 64-gallon Containers

Newport News rolls out new recycling carts this month with hopes of encouraging residents to recycle more trash.

Sixty-four-gallon blue carts on wheels will replace 18-gallon brown bins in most of the city's 44,000 households. The switch will continue through June.

Pickup schedules also will change. Trucks will collect recycled trash every other week instead of weekly.

Collection day will stay the same for all households except condominiums, town houses and mobile-home parks that keep the 18-gallon bins. Those places -- and Kiln Creek -- don't have enough space for the larger carts, city officials say.

Elsewhere, trucks will collect recycled trash only if residents use the new carts. Residents can't participate in the curbside recycling program if they don't want a cart. (They can keep the brown bins.)

A survey found that 84 percent of residents preferred the new carts. Surveyed residents were among 2,000 households that participated in a six-month trial run.

Dori Brown, city recycling coordinator, said officials hope the bigger carts encourage residents to recycle more trash, allowing them to request smaller garbage containers and save money on garbage-pickup fees.

Based on the trial run, city officials expect to recycle an additional 5,800 tons of trash annually, saving the city nearly $150,000 annually in dumping fees.

Hampton switched to large, rolling carts in November 2001. The year before, the city collected about 8,000 tons of recycled trash. The year after, it collected nearly 11,000 tons.

Ted Henifin, Hampton public works director, attributes the increased tonnage to the carts' convenience: They have wheels and lids and hold more recycled trash.

"We haven't had anything but rave reviews," he said. "Very few negative comments."

Suffolk recently decided to keep its bins, unwilling to pay an extra $700,000 annually for automated service. Isle of Wight County hasn't decided whether to switch.

The Southeastern Public Service Authority hauls recycled trash in those localities.

Newport News' proposed budget recommends raising garbage-pickup fees, with the size of the increase varying according to container size. If residents recycle more trash, they might be able to use a smaller trash can and pay lower garbage-pickup fees.

Budget officials estimate that the higher fee will bring in an additional $1.1 million, with about $400,000 set aside to operate the new recycling program. That includes the cost of hiring one maintenance employee. The city spent about $1 million on the new carts.

The switch allows Tidewater Fibre Corp., which hauls recycled trash in Newport News and Hampton, to use trucks with mechanical arms for collection, rather than having drivers jump out of their trucks, pick up bins and dump them.

Brown said 5,000 houses have received the carts. The first collection is scheduled to occur next week between Main Street and Harpersville Road, including areas along Shoe Lane and Hidenwood.

"The residents," Brown said, "are just going to love it."

STAYING THE SAME

Most Newport News households will switch to 64-gallon, wheeled recycling carts in May and June. The following places will continue to use 18-gallon bins because they don't have enough space for the larger carts: